Wednesday, October 31, 2007

My wife bought a Vermont shaped cookie cutter and as we were making Halloween cookies last night I tried to color mine along the lines of the foliage maps that we had seen in the newspapers up there a few weeks ago. While it did not match the state's tourism web site animation very well, it did come somewhat close to the September 25th foliage map on the bottom right. In fact it was close enough that Amy was able to guess what the map was showing on the first try.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

The US Forest Service has a web site that monitors major fires. Usually they are spread throughout the country but this week it's all happening in southern California. You can click on the dots on the map and get a status report for any fire. You can also link from this site to Google Earth and get a close up view of all the fire activity going on throughout North America. The image to the right from Google Earth shows the current fire activity in southern California.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Feeling glum about the shorter days? So is Business Week. They put out this "Map of Misery". It took some digging to figure out exactly what they're showing here but it's basically the percentage of people who are getting new or refinanced loans that allow the option to make lower payments in return for getting hammered with future interest debt. This phenomenon seems to be prevalent in the expensive and desirable communities such as Santa Barbara, Boca Raton and of course, Jersey City.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

The Inglehart Values Map visualizes the strong correlation of values in different cultures. Countries are described using two dimensions; secular-rational vs. traditional values and self-expression vs survival values. Countries that are geographically or culturally close cluster in different areas on the chart. A more detailed description is available by clicking below.

Friday, October 5, 2007

I love Wikipedia. Not everyone likes the fact that anyone can post entries and information is not always verified. However, there is a process for removing bad entries and I've found most if the information to be pretty useful. What I don't like about it is the lack of good maps. One day while being frustrated by that I discovered Wikimapia. While this does not directly link to Wikipedia and solve the map problem it is still a pretty cool idea. You can create your own login but actually anyone can add a place. Sure there's abuse but users can flag bad entires, make comments and give a "thumbs down" to inaccurate or dopey comments or entries. Also, it is worldwide so you can add any place on earth! So go ahead and add your favorite places. The more feedback they get the better (and more accurate) the site will be.